Week 14....of the Super Stitches Knitting Project

Ahhh, it's Sunday again...
This week's challenge was:
1) Open Diamond Panel
2) Rough Marriage Lines
3) Seeded Flags Panel

Here they are, tails wagging...

I worked each of these swatches doubled. That is, two repeats in each swatch. That is because they were each around 10 stitches each. Which is really annoying. I can't wait to get out of the panels, because it limits my thinking to ganseys.

SWATCH 1: Open Diamond Panel
This pattern was reminiscent again of those miserable (yet to be frogged) guitar man socks. And since it's a repeat of 9 it would fit easily in a sock. Though, in order to do that you'd have to reverse each RS row to knit them in the round.

Open Diamond Panel

This picture doesn't do the swatch justice. In real life those purl bumps really pop. For some reason I imagine adding embroidery inside each of those little diamonds, and my brain really wants to see this swatch as a sock. Maybe because it reminds me of argyle? Maybe because I'm sick of seeing grey? I want to somehow add a bit of fair isle to this swatch, but I think that would be too much for my brain while knitting it and the patterns would probably fight with each other.

SWATCH 2: Rough Marriage Lines
I did not enjoy this swatch.

Rough Marriage Lines (RS)

There were several reasons.
1) I lost the post-it note I usually use when doing patterns with lots of rows (in this case 14)
2) The yarn had, not one but TWO, knots in this tiny little swatch. I cut out the first one, and then left the second one, and then lost track of where I was because they looked so ugly so I ripped it all back and cut the offending area out completely.
3) The pattern backtracks a lot and it is easy to forget whether you were going forwards or backwards.
That said, I don't even like the look of this swatch. Though, I like the WS a bit better than the Right.

Rough Marriage Lines Panel (WS)

I guess, just like the rough marriage it is supposed to represent, this one is just not worth it.
(Although..... My boyfriend and I were talking last night and we ended up talking about designs. See, I've been listening to the Never Not Knitting podcast and I've really enjoyed listening to Alana's journey from someone-who-works-at-a-yarn-shop to someone-who-does-knitwear-designing to designer-with-book-out. It's been really exciting, and I ended up talking to Will about how there are so many beautiful designs for girls, but how it's really hard to find a cute design for little boys. And he had this weird idea of knitting a sweater with teeth overlapping on the zipper. Like, so that the sweater is eating the wearer, kind of? He had this whole shark idea, and it was totally off the wall and really bizarre and I kind of liked it. If I could reverse one of the marriage lines, it would almost look like teeth, right? I bet I'll find something usable in the Edgings section. That way I don't have to worry about the different colors until later....)

SWATCH 3: Seeded Flags Panel
This swatch was fun to knit up. There are only 6 rows to repeat, and two of them are repeated, and so it's really easy to keep track of where you are.

 Seeded Flags Swatch

See those two lines of knit stitches running along the front? I love when a stitch pattern gives you something like that to rely on. It's kind of like a lifeline. If you ever end up with a purl in that line you realize "Oh, dang. I'm off somewhere." and noticing a mistake quickly is really key in getting it fixed instead of frogging back.
That said, I also like the look of this swatch. I kind of have this weird obsession with the idea of knitting a long piece to make the brim of a hat and then scooping up stitches and knitting upwards? And it applies here too. Those two lines of knit stitches would really stand out, I think. And then the center design (which you can't really see in this picture) is like a little diamond and it would look pretty nice too.

Anyways, that's it for this week. My 1 yr old is begging to go on a walk and I can't say no to a face like that.
Next week:
1) Flags and Stripes Pane
2) Simple Star Motif (that one looks fun.... it kind of almost looks like the star is smiling too)
3) Broken Chevron Panel

Happy knitting!!